Swept up in the crowd
Monitoring my reaction to the OpenAI news
The situation at OpenAI that broke Friday and continued over the weekend has been fascinating and fun to follow. My broad strokes understanding of events is:
Shocking news breaks friday that the Board fired CEO Sam Altman. Was not clear why
It comes out that they ostensibly fired him for unspecified “communication issues” and not being straightforward with the Board
The response from employees and Microsoft (who has a huge stake in OpenAI) was so severe that it seemed the Board would reverse the decision and bring Altman back
As of Monday morning, that has broken down and Altman will join Microsoft to lead an AI group, along with many OpenAI staffers who have pledged to follow him
It has been a crazy corporate drama and is happening to the hottest company in the world. But I wanted to reflect on my own reactions to the news, because it has been such a fast-paced story that I can clearly remember my feelings.
My opinion going in to the events was that Altman is an incredibly effective operator and that he would probably push the boundaries of what many would consider “safe” AI.
When the news broke that the Board fired him, I immediately assumed that he had done something terrible and probably criminal. It was so so sudden and unexpected that I figured it had to be a no-brainer offense.
Then, when the Board came out with a jargon-y statement about his communication issues, I was very surprised. My entire twitter timeline turned against the Board, calling them incompetent and cowardly for opposing the progress that Altman would bring. I found myself caught up in this, rooting for Altman to make a heroic return to the company he founded.
Only on Sunday did I reflect that this may be exactly the function of the Board of the non-profit entity of OpenAI: to make an unpopular decision that is, in their view, good for society. I don’t know anything about the members of the Board but they certainly all have much more information than I do or most of the tech talking heads I follow on twitter do.
So, now I am feeling defensive for the Board and would really like to hear a real statement about why they felt they needed to take such drastic action. And I feel a little sheepish that I was so caught up in the fervor of the crowd cheering on Altman.
Good point Jackson. Like Joe and apparently many of the employees and other stakeholders, I found the board's non-explanation unsatisfactory. The board should've known that stakeholders would wish to know the real reason and now the story is that much bigger because of the coy way the board handled the matter.
I like this theory a lot, as time and events have passed it makes the most sense.
I do wonder if the board was a bit naive to have not anticipated the backlash that would happen from firing Sam. For such a smart group, I would've hoped on their risk management bingo card had spaces such as "company backlash from 500 out of 700 employees" or even "Sam and Greg Brockman join Microsoft instead."
I'll be curious to see how Sam gets along at Microsoft. He seems so mission driven that I wonder if a for-profit company will start to rub off on him.